Page 19 of Earthbound

‘I suppose the feast will showcase how the fray is essential to our livelihood,’ Rayan said. Though he still seemed unconvinced by the idea.

‘And celebrating the sun striking the Tree of Souls will remind the elves that Mosima is still a prison, no matter how beautiful it is,’ Yeeran said. ‘It may make them more amenable to relinquishing the Bleeding Field.’

‘The Fae Lands,’ Furi corrected her. She didn’t like it when Yeeran referred to her ancestral land as a battlefield. ‘And we can remind them Mosima is a prison, but that we are no feeble prisoners.’

She smiled, and it must have looked a little bloodthirsty because Yeeran said, ‘You know you can’t threaten them, Furi.’

Furi pretended to look hurt. ‘I would never.’

‘I’m serious. If you make them feel unsafe at all, everything I’ve done over the last few months was for naught.’

‘I will be on my best behaviour.’

Yeeran got up to leave. She paused as she passed Furi and leaned in so she could feel her breath against her cheek.

‘You and I both know that your very best behaviour often still needs discipline,’ Yeeran whispered.

Furi shivered, her mouth falling agape as Yeeran left nothing but her maddening scent of cedar in her wake.

She toys with me. The thought didn’t incite any malice. This was a game Furi enjoyed playing.

She knew exactly what her next move would be.

‘Rayan, I’m going to call on the weavers, see if they can source us two new outfits for the occasion.’ But the king had grown distant again, his eyes glazed over as though he were seeing something beyond his mere sight. ‘Rayan?’

Furi stepped towards him and rested her hand on his forearm. He looked at her, startled. ‘Where did you go?’ she asked him.

‘Far away,’ he admitted.

‘You’ll need to be present for this banquet, Rayan. Yeeran’s right, it’s important that we represent Mosima as a unified front. Where’s Ajax?’

‘Basking in the sun topside,’ he said with a small smile. She was glad his obeah’s pursuits brought him comfort, but she could see Rayan was lonely.

‘Call him to you,’ she said softly. ‘I haven’t seen him in Mosima for some time.’

He shook his head. ‘No. He prefers the sun to the fray.’ He stood from his chair and walked to the window then added quietly, ‘And so do I.’

We all do, Furi thought but didn’t say.

‘What if we walk away from all of it? Leave Mosima to rot?’ he said.

Furi laughed until she realised Rayan wasn’t joking. ‘You would condemn the whole of Mosima to death?’

The Jani dynasty was bound to the land: if either royal abandoned the city it would decay. Furi and Rayan had left for mere hours once and a frost destroyed a large portion of their plants. If they were to leave permanently, Mosima would not survive.

‘The price of freedom is high,’ he said coldly.

Furi was shocked. This was not the Rayan she had come to know, the Rayan who couldn’t kill a spider, and instead would diligently spend half an hour coaxing it outside.

‘Look at me, Rayan,’ she said.

He turned bleary eyes towards her. She often forgot how new he was to the prison bars of Mosima. The curse had been a constant in her life. ‘Cursed to endure, cursed to survive ‘was etched into the Tree of Souls, and so too onto the walls of her mind.

The burden of the curse had been passed through generations, even though the origins of it had not. All they knew was that Afa had cursed them, and that was guilt enough.

But Rayan had been born free under the light of the true sun. He knew what it was like to see the seasons change, to feel real rain on your face. Then in a blink he had lost it all; the moon, the sun and the sky.

I do not envy him his experience.